The Islamic State of Iraq in Syria, known better as ISIS, has operated in Syria and Iraq since 2003 as an offshoot of al-Qaeda—at least until al-Qaeda disavowed any connection. The military organization is neither a political party nor religious group, though membership primarily consists of Sunni Muslims, the “orthodox” branch of Islam and the religion’s largest sect (Baghdad’s government contains mostly Shiite Muslims).

Writer Porochista Khakpour discusses her new novel, The Last Illusion, her desire to literalize the surreal, the role addiction plays for her characters and narrative, and being a lover of outsider stories. ...more

The first man to make me feel like I could groove in America was Magic Johnson. Not just be here, not just make it through a school day without crying, but groove: exist with such assurance that I could look in one direction and engage with another.

This summer, I found myself in Iran in the midst of an escalating international conflict, admittedly not the most pragmatic of decisions. After a four-hour drive from the Imam Khomeini airport in Tehran, I arrive at my grandmother’s house on the Caspian Sea.

Somewhere in an anonymous functionary’s desk drawer or a filing cabinet in a fluorescent-lit office or a cardboard box in a dusty basement sits the Persian-language manuscript of Mahmoud Dowlatabadi’s The Colonel. Whatever the Iranian government does with books that challenge the official history, that so incisively delineate the many facets of Iranian politics and culture and so tragically describe the many places where those divergent forces meet and attempt to destroy each other, whatever the government does with those sorts of books does not include allowing their publication in Iran.

“After I recanted my false confession, my main interrogator essentially told me he knew I was not a spy. My captors may have wanted to use my false confession to intimidate Iranians advocating better relations with the West. They may have also wanted my false confession to reinforce their claim that America had planted spies throughout Iran.”

Laleh Khadivi’s novel traces the history of Iran through the brutal journey of a young Kurd

Greetings! Your humble guest-editor Michael is back in the saddle for another round of negotiating the highly-addictive world of the book blogs. I had an interesting week, where I had time to contemplate my imminent move to Bernal Heights and whether I should apply to those blasted MFA’s again and what it means that I can’t seem to stop watching post-apocalyptic movies and reading depressingly dystopian fiction.

The sun blazes in a clear blue sky and is visible well until 9 o’clock at night. It’s Gay Pride weekend in San Francisco, the streets bejewelled with parades, both joyous and bittersweet. The coffee shop is full of people playing board games while the taquerias overflow with confused French tourists.

e-source: “Tehran is very very quiet. There’s anger & passion, but going out to show it doesn’t seem very productive and is very dangerous” … Confirmed firsthand account of another “Allahu Akbar” protester killed on the rootfop, this one in Tehran.

In the current political crisis in Iran, the boldest tool, turns out to be civic technology. Iran has gone out of its way to block the BBC, Yahoo, mobile phone networks, foreign journalists, Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites during the election. What this has revealed is that the Iranian government is very sophisticated in blocking access to technology.

“As the embattled government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to be trying to limit Internet access and communications in Iran, new kinds of social media are challenging those traditional levers of state media control and allowing Iranians to find novel ways around the restrictions,” reports the New York Times.

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